


Somewhere Between

by ForNought



Series: Too Hot, Too Cold [4]
Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, argument, poor expression, sad people, self negativity, uncertain future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6189568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForNought/pseuds/ForNought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sousuke finds himself unable to explain what he means. He might not even understand why he even brings it up. After starting something he wasn't particularly prepared to finish he ends up having to console Gou and half-admit to things he had been avoiding himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere Between

**Author's Note:**

> This is chronologically part 1.5.

“Is your brother very familiar with everyone,” Sousuke asked quietly as Kisumi chopped fruit.

“Hmm? No, not really. Why?”

Kisumi continued to slice the apples he was chucking into a bowl. It was nice to know that he didn’t see this as something he needed to spare any attention for.

“Well, obviously I’m asking because the way he speaks to me is very… uh… intimate.”

“Intimate?” Kisumi repeated neutrally.

“That’s not quite the word but I can’t think of how else to describe it. I know you’re laughing at me right now but I just find it a bit odd.”

“I’m… not laughing,” Kisumi said, his voice tight and the shake of his shoulders giving away the smile that he kept turning away from Sousuke’s eyes as he tried to scrutinise the complete lack of understanding he was getting.

Sousuke grabbed at Kisumi’s shoulder to spin him around. Kisumi could not bring his hands up to his face quickly enough to obscure the brightness of his grin and Sousuke settled for scowling as he released Kisumi. The warmth of Kisumi’s shoulder quickly faded from Sousuke’s hand and he vaguely wondered whether Kisumi was suffering from something contagious. To run a temperature that high he had to be ill. Sousuke wasn’t particularly in the mood to ask – or even be privately concerned considering he was being made fun of.

“Does it really bother you so much, Yamazaki-san?”

“Shut up,” Sousuke muttered as he shoved Kisumi, belatedly realising that one of them was wielding a knife. He hopped back and hoped Kisumi realised that it was a knife that he was twirling so carelessly between his fingers as he grinned back.

“What’s the problem? Gou talks to you casually all the time now.”

Sousuke shrugged and Kisumi turned back to slicing. There was a chance that he was being stupid. Gou was different, though Sousuke wasn’t quite sure how she was different. She simply was. Hayato was small and cute and probably the successful second attempt that gained none of Kisumi’s characteristics.

He watched the methodical way Kisumi chopped apples and wondered just how many were going to end up in the smoothies he had proposed.

“That’s different.”

Kisumi’s hands paused as though this apple was a particularly tough one and for a moment he needed to exert an extreme amount of pressure to slice right through it. And then he relaxed his hand and the colour that had drained away was back in Kisumi’s careful fingers. The only response Sousuke got was an exaggerated, “Oh, really.”

It really was different. Sousuke couldn’t quite say how. He had known Gou for quite a while and it seemed only natural for her to confide how much chocolate she had eaten that week, or for her to send him messages void of any punctuation or sense and not know what was meant by it when Sousuke asked her about it, or for Gou to sigh loudly and ask Sousuke to take his shirt off because she needed cheering up. An unwelcome heat effervesced beneath the surface of Sousuke’s skin, bubbles of blush bursting at his face and all the way down to his chest.

Sousuke tried telling himself not to be embarrassed, because he shouldn’t have to feel ashamed of anything – it really wasn’t Kisumi’s business – but the heat didn’t recede and he wondered whether it had anything to do with the very different feeling lodged in between his ribs.

“I mean…”

“Whatever,” Kisumi shot over his shoulder in Sousuke’s moment of hesitation. His voice was needle thin and rather than dislodge the obstruction in Sousuke’s ribs he seemed to have inflamed it.

Cat-like, Hayato had entered the kitchen. Sousuke wouldn’t have known it if it had not been for Kisumi’s probably psychic awareness.

“Ah, Hayato, have you come to seek an audience with Yamazaki-sama once more?”

Hayato stopped midstep and frowned at his brother for a moment. “Why are you speaking like that?”

“Why, you ask?” Kisumi said, gesturing with both hands. Sousuke ducked out of the way of the knife as it waved far too closely to his face. “I am simply leading by example, my dearest younger brother. The great Yamazaki-dono requests the utmost respect from us lowly peasants.”

“That’s not funny,” Sousuke murmured, nudging Kisumi in the back as though he thought it would make any difference to the flamboyant flailing as Kisumi danced around the kitchen in a succession of bows and curtseys.

Sousuke rubbed at his side, wondering whether the throbbing irritation was just a bug-bite despite the death of summer. He felt nothing bulging through the surface of his skin. He would need to ask someone what sort of parasite embedded itself so comfortably within a person’s bones.

Hayato frowned at the display but after gleaning nothing from Sousuke’s expression he hesitantly bowed in front of his brother.

“There we go, that’s the spirit!” Kisumi cried, grabbing his brother’s hand and slapping on a very severe expression as he bowed again in front of Sousuke.

“Alright, it’s really not funny though,” Sousuke said exasperatedly as he tried to pry Kisumi from his bow by the shoulder.

“Don’t touch me.” In the moment he recoiled, Sousuke saw even Hayato flinch. Before Sousuke could point that out, Kisumi, while straightening his back stiffly, added, “The young lord shouldn’t need to sully himself with the likes of us.”

“Kisumi!”

“Ah, Hayato, could you please finish chopping these apples for me?”

Hayato accepted the knife delicately as though he supposed the very thing itself might be more of a danger than how he used it. “How much more do we need?”

“You might as well do all of them,” Kisumi shrugged. He remained wordless as he left the kitchen but Sousuke took that as his cue to follow through the door.

“You’re really pissing me off, you know,” Kisumi said no sooner than Sousuke had stepped over the threshold into the living room.

“I could say the same about you.”

“At least I make sense. What is it exactly that you hate about my brother?”

“Nothing! I don’t-“

“He’s just a kid. He’s a little bit shy, and honestly he’s the funniest person I know. You know, the other day he did this great impression of a jellyfish. I don’t see what your problem is. Like, ‘intimate’, what the hell is that?”

Sousuke shrugged. It was hard to explain – even harder when he considered that ‘intimate’ wasn’t the right word but he still hadn’t found the appropriate substitute. Hayato was nothing like Kisumi. Hayato was quiet and polite but there was the occasional flutter of eyelashes or the tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and there were all the times he bore a too familiar lack of restraint when grabbing Sousuke’s arm to attract his attention.

“I told you, that’s not quite it. It’s just… I don’t know. Weird.”

“Weird?” Kisumi repeated, the flatness of his voice belying the dangerous flash of his eyes. “You think it’s weird that my brother thinks of you as a friend and he likes being around you? That’s weird to you?”

“Okay well I didn’t think you’d make such a big deal of it. It was just bothering me a little bit but whatever it doesn’t matter.”

Kisumi folded his arms across his chest and scoffed. “Yeah, that bothers you? It bothers me that you hate my brother. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it should bother me that my brother wants to hang out with some loser whose only achievement in life is leeching off his struggling parents.”

“That’s a bit-“

“Are you going to try to refute that? Go on then, tell me what makes you better than a kid.”

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“I think harshness is good considering you find my brother so abhorrent-“

“I told you, that’s not it!” Sousuke clenched his jaw against the heat that was flaming in his face and he wondered if maybe he was running a fever to fight off the odd sickness that he felt right through to the marrow of his bones. It probably didn’t matter that Kisumi wasn’t listening to him because he didn’t really know how to vocalise his feelings.

“What is _it_?”

“I’m trying to… Erm…”

Kisumi scowled and it wasn’t an expression that fit properly on his face.

“What are you doing, Sousuke? What do you want?”

There were lots of answers to those questions. Sousuke had picked up more shifts at his family’s shop, he was actually being useful about it too instead of sighing whenever a customer approached the till. He had been in correspondence with a very eager faculty member at Samezuka who was keen to help Sousuke on his way to being slightly productive. He wanted to be able to listen to Kisumi tell him about university without sharp pangs of jealousy springing around his chest. He wanted to at least pretend he was a grown up with a job and a mildly interesting life. He wanted to take Kisumi’s hands into his own and apologise and ignore the very abstract thing that was bothering him.

“I’m going home,” Sousuke announced. Kisumi stared for a moment, shrugged, walked into the kitchen as though Sousuke had never been there at all. He heard Hayato chirping at his brother and it was a bit much. He closed the front door slowly and sighed. He shrugged his shoulder and ignore the odd pang that was searing through his torso.

He went home.

It was chilly and Sousuke pulled his jacket more tightly around himself and he ducked his head against the whooshing of wind through his collar and around his neck. He walked fast, a sweat breaking out across his skin at odds with the freezing blustering of the air around him.

Sat outside the front door to Sousuke’s house was Gou without even a jacket thrown over her uniform. She was shivering steadily and her breath condensed in even clouds just above her knees that were being hugged to her chest. Sousuke dashed over the final few yards and Gou’s skin was cold to the touch. A second too late she noticed Sousuke’s presence and glanced in his direction with an uncanny stretch of her lips.

“Gou what are you doing here?”

She shrugged.

“Why didn’t you go inside?”

“Your mum,” was all Gou listlessly supplied. Sousuke frowned. He doubted his mum would have refused Gou entry but he only had half a reason as to why Gou had frozen on his very doorstep.

“Do you want to come inside now?” Sousuke hoped for a yes, he begged the cosmos for a yes because he couldn’t let Gou sit out here any longer. She nodded quickly and Sousuke helped her stand. He pushed her through the door and into the blast of warmth that soon enveloped even Sousuke’s frozen fingertips.

He flexed his fingers as he kicked his shoes off his feet. He tried not to gawk too obviously at the listless way Gou was sliding her scuffed shoes off her feet. She glanced at him briefly and he silently gestured for her to follow him up the stairs. It was weird. Gou wasn’t taciturn and dull. She was effervescent with careless prattle and pensive when it suited her.

She seemed the thaw with every step. Sousuke hoped that eventually she would be regaling him with her encyclopaedic opinions of which muscles were just the best and what angles they should be viewed from for maximum appreciation. She blinked rapidly but the frosting of pink around her cheeks and nose didn’t recede. Neither did the dour expression that had fused to her skin.

When they reached Sousuke’s bedroom Gou slumped onto his bed without being prompted. He wondered if perhaps she had been through the mechanics of comfort many times before. Sousuke pushed the chair he was about to offer under the desk and sat beside her dutifully.

“I don’t know what to do,” Gou mumbled to her knees.

“So you came to ask me? Gou do I look like somebody who has everything worked out?”

She shook her head and flattened her skirt against her thighs before curling her hands into fists. Her shoulders trembled and a whoosh of a gasp escaped her and Sousuke barely caught the words her breath carried. “I think I hate my brother.”

“Why?”

“He’s just… this great person, isn’t he. He’s so driven. Successful. A brilliant example to follow.”

There was a long moment when Sousuke had to process what Gou meant by that. Sousuke sort of hated Rin too. But it was different for Gou. She had no choice but to step onto well-trodden territory and stumble over the pockmarked ground whereas Sousuke had tried to find his own route to the same destination, only to fail for his own folly. Maybe Gou didn’t want to reach Rin’s destination, or she knew that she couldn’t. She was smart, Sousuke had never seen the fact that he couldn’t reach Rin until it was too late. There was no doubt that others could easily outstrip him without a moment’s pause too, but Sousuke had to swallow down his own bitterness. Being related was no reason to struggle against an identity meant for someone else – there was no comforting himself when he was simply being stupid, not scrutinised.

He took a breath and hoped he could say something right. He supposed this might be a day of not being able to get his mouth to make sense but even the emptiest of words might be better than nonplussed silence for Gou.

“Not everyone is like your brother. Rin is one in a million. He always knew what he was supposed to do.”

“Did he? He always made it sound like it was only dad’s dream but then he made it his own dream. He has done well but what about me? Am I going to be a let-down?”

“Of course not, Gou.”

“Are you sure? It was okay while Rin was still in school because he had all these big dreams and ideas and I could relax a bit but now he’s off, being this very international child and I realised they’ve been waiting for me to do the same. Everyone has been waiting for me to be just as good at something as he is but I’m not. I’m not really good at anything myself. I’m not special and I don’t have his determination to do…”

“It’s okay, Gou.”

“Is it? I’m not good enough to represent Japan at anything. I’m just Kou. I’m just Matsuoka… Gou.”

Sousuke’s throat felt scratchy and watching Gou stare blankly at her own hands, limply twisted in her lap, only make the need to cough away the prickle worse. A hand on a shoulder was always good, Sousuke had thought but as he awkwardly patted Gou’s nearest shoulder he realised the action wasn’t worth much. He slowly moved his arm across the roundness of her shoulders, gently weaving between Gou’s ponytail and the nape of her neck before tipping her into his side and letting her sag there.

“You’re not _just_ anything,” Sousuke said. Even saying it quietly didn’t stop the wobble in his voice but there wasn’t much time to be annoyed at himself about that when he remembered this wasn’t really about him. Gou’s words were striking too close to home but it had been different because the one goal he had was stripped away by his determination to reach it. Gou had never fancied herself as one of the world’s best swimmers, she was a high school girl trying to enjoy life when her time suddenly ran out. It wasn’t really fair on her. It wasn’t her fault.

Sousuke hoped that Gou might show him the same sympathies for the fact that he couldn’t round out his thoughts with something a little bit more inspirational. He had the rumbles of potential in his mind but nothing was close to what Gou deserved to hear. It was a shame Sousuke wasn’t better at this. His head was thumping, rhythmically and loudly, though it may not have just been his head when his bedroom door burst open.

“I’ve been calling you for ages!” Sousuke’s mum scolded loudly with her hands on her hips. Gou tensed in Sousuke’s arms but didn’t do much more than that.

“Sorry,” Sousuke mumbled, not quite meeting his mum’s gaze. He wasn’t sure whether this was the right time to release Gou from his grip, whether the comforting was done or should be postponed at least until his mother wasn’t eyeing him dangerously.

“It would be polite to let us know that you’ve arrived home. And with a guest! Gou, sweetheart, can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you.”

Sousuke’s mum nodded with a stern set of her mouth. The eyebrow raise did nothing to clue Sousuke into what she was thinking but he tilted his head at her as though she really had taught him some mother-son telepathy. She smiled tightly and Sousuke reasoned his face said something right, though he wasn’t sure what exactly that was. She shut the door quietly behind her and Sousuke realised he probably should have hinted that he wanted some guidance on the whole comforting situation.

Gou sniffed. “Thanks,” She said. “But…”

“You have so much going for you, Gou. Don’t feel that it isn’t worth anything because you’re not Rin. Like I said, Rin is Rin. You’re different to him.”

“No offense, but please don’t start clutching at straws trying to think of my good points,” Gou said. “As well as being a struggle it wouldn’t be all that encouraging coming from a guy who doesn’t have much going for himself.”

Gou wasn’t really wrong. Sousuke did feel offended but nothing he had was his own. He hadn’t worked for anything that he had, desperately clawing at an opportunity to properly carve his place in the world. He had worked his way to a wrecked shoulder and that was about it. He could only be thankful that his parents were content to support him while they pretended he was any help around the house and in the shop. He could only be thankful that Kisumi, maybe not as enamoured with grand goals as Rin was, was kind enough to retrace old steps and hold Sousuke’s hand and press kisses to his temple and witter away Sousuke’s moods with smiles and jokes and coy teasing.

It was probably for the best that Gou had stopped that avenue of comforting seeing as Sousuke would likely have run out of meaningful qualities very quickly. One of the problems with having his parents and Kisumi be so unconditionally positive about him was that he was baselessly certain that things would turn out well. Gou wasn’t in the mood for Sousuke to stutter and stumble over words halfway through a mistake for long enough to provoke her tear ducts.

He settled for patting Gou on the head and huffing. Because Gou’s damming appraisal of Sousuke – a guy with not much going for himself – was much the same as Kisumi’s blind retaliation. Kisumi was going back to university soon and Sousuke would have to wait for him to tire of studying and basketball and clever, interesting friends, and the big-city social scene for long enough to send a brief, unpunctuated message that invited no reply.

“I guess you’re right,” Sousuke said tightly. “I don’t have anything useful to say anyway. How about you do the talking.”

Gou flinched. “Me?”

“Yeah. Maybe just venting will help a bit.”

Unsure as the expression on her face, Gou shuffled a little bit and sat up, gently loosing herself from Sousuke’s hold and she slid her hands under her thighs. When she had fidgeted all she could she hesitated, staring at the back of Sousuke’s bedroom door. He wondered whether it was obvious that the scarf hanging on the peg there belonged to Kisumi. Carelessly forgotten in Sousuke’s room, he may have intentionally forgotten to give it back. It didn’t have Kisumi’s name on it but part of him wondered whether the knowledge in his brain permeated through his skull.

“I just.”

“Just what?” Sousuke said, maybe sharper than necessary but the click of her jaw after the aborted words tugged at Sousuke’s consciousness enough for him to remember to pay attention to what was directly relevant.

“The snapping just kept getting worse,” Gou mumbled, shoulders hunched as she scrubbed at her eyes and then her nose. She sniffed loudly and Sousuke could feel a familiar tingling in his own. He bumped his knee into hers but she only jerked her leg away from him. “I was always so wound up, all the time, and the tiniest thing would set me up. I yelled at my mum all the time because I hated the way she stacked the bowls in the cupboards and I hated the way she never shuts doors all the way and I hated the way she would ask me how I am. Each time she would ask me in this _voice!_ I can’t describe it but it really got to me. There was so much stuff that didn’t mean anything and I would start having a go at her every time she did anything. I think I have even made her cry a few times. I’m sure I have and just knowing that makes it even worse, and the way to get rid of the feeling is to shout more. It’s… I’m awful.”

Gou really did sound awful. Getting wound up over tiny little things, knowing how insignificant everything is but still blowing up over it. She sounded the familiar kind of awful that made Sousuke surprised his mum could still greet him with smiles in the morning, that she could scoop rice high into a bowl and pass it across the table without tossing the whole thing against the wall to spite her ungrateful son.

“Yeah, you are.”

Gou scoffed quietly but she wasn’t offended enough to refute the fact.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was going to be part 2 but I didn't like it. I almost scrapped it but as I finally finished part 2 I thought it might be nice to include this as a little bit of context.


End file.
